East, to where Apollo cools the fiery wheels of his chariot in the
waters of far western seas, the goddess sought her daughter. With a
black robe over her head and carrying a flaming torch in either hand,
for nine dreary days she sought her loved one. And yet, for nine more
weary days and nine sleepless nights the goddess, racked by human
sorrow, sat in hopeless misery. The hot sun beat upon her by day. By
night the silver rays from Diana's car smote her more gently, and the
dew drenched her hair and her black garments and mingled with the
saltness of her bitter tears. At the grey dawning of the tenth day her
elder daughter, Hecate, stood beside her. Queen of ghosts and shades
was she, and to her all dark places of the earth were known.
"Let us go to the Sun God," said Hecate. "Surely he hath seen the god
who stole away the little Proserpine. Soon his chariot will drive
across the heavens. Come, let us ask him to guide us to the place
where she is hidden."
Thus did they come to the chariot of the glorious Apollo, and standing
by the heads of his horses like two grey clouds that bar the passage
of the sun, they begged him to tell them the name of him who had
stolen fair Proserpine.
"No less a thief was he," said Apollo, "than Pluto, King of Darkness
and robber of Life itself. Mourn not, Demeter. Thy daughter is safe in
his keeping. The little nymph who played in the meadows is now Queen
of the Shades. Nor does Pluto love her vainly. She is now in love with
Death."
No comfort did the words of the Sun God bring to the longing soul of
Demeter. And her wounded heart grew bitter. Because she suffered,
others must suffer as well. Because she mourned, all the world must
mourn. The fragrant flowers spoke to her only of Persephone, the
purple grapes reminded her of a vintage when the white fingers of her
child had plucked the fruit. The waving golden grain told her that
Persephone was as an ear of wheat that is reaped before its time.
Then upon the earth did there come dearth and drought and barrenness.
"The wheat
Was blighted in the ear, the purple grapes
Blushed no more on the vines, and all the gods
Were sorrowful ..."
Lewis Morris.
Gods and men alike suffered from the sorrow of Demeter. To her, in
pity for the barren earth, Zeus sent an embassy, but in vain it came.
Merciless was the great Earth Mother, who had been robbed of what she
held most dear.
"Give me back my child!" she said. "Gladly I watch the sufferings of
men, for no sorrow is as my sorrow. Give me back my child, and the
earth shall grow fertile once more."
Unwillingly Zeus granted the request of Demeter.
"She shall come back," he said at last, "and with thee dwell on earth
forever. Yet only on one condition do I grant thy fond request.
Persephone must eat no food through all the time of her sojourn in the
realm of Pluto, else must thy beseeching be all in vain."
Then did Demeter gladly leave Olympus and hasten down to the darkness
of the shadowy land that once again she might hold, in her strong
mother's arms, her who had once been her little clinging child.
But in the dark kingdom of Pluto a strange thing had happened. No
longer had the pale-faced god, with dark locks, and eyes like the
sunless pools of a mountain stream, any terrors for Proserpine. He was
strong, and cruel had she thought him, yet now she knew that the touch
of his strong, cold hands was a touch of infinite tenderness. When,
knowing the fiat of the ruler of Olympus, Pluto gave to his stolen
bride a pomegranate, red in heart as the heart of a man, she had taken
it from his hand, and, because he willed it, had eaten of the sweet
seeds. Then, in truth, it was too late for Demeter to save her child.
She "had eaten of Love's seed" and "changed into another."
"He takes the cleft pomegranate seeds:
'Love, eat with me this parting day;'
Then bids them fetch the coal-black steeds--
'Demeter's daughter, wouldst away?'
The gates of Hades set her free;
'She will return full soon,' saith he--
'My wife, my wife Persephone.'"
Ingelow.
Dark, dark was the kingdom of Pluto. Its rivers never mirrored a
sunbeam, and ever moaned low as an earthly river moans before a coming
flood, and the feet that trod the gloomy Cocytus valley were the feet
of those who never again would tread on the soft grass and flowers of
an earthly meadow. Yet when Demeter had braved all the shadows of
Hades, only in part was her end accomplished. In part only was
Proserpine now her child, for while half her heart was in the
sunshine, rejoicing in the beauties of earth, the other half was with
the god who had taken her down to the Land of Darkness and there had
won her for his own. Back to the flowery island of Sicily her mother
brought her, and the peach trees and the almonds blossomed snowily as
she passed. The olives decked themselves with their soft grey leaves,
the corn sprang up, green and lush and strong. The lemon and orange
groves grew golden with luscious fruit, and all the land was carpeted
with flowers. For six months of the year she stayed, and gods and men
rejoiced at the bringing back of Proserpine. For six months she left
her green and pleasant land for the dark kingdom of him whom she
loved, and through those months the trees were bare, and the earth
chill and brown, and under the earth the flowers hid themselves in
fear and awaited the return of the fair daughter of Demeter.
And evermore has she come and gone, and seedtime and harvest have
never failed, and the cold, sleeping world has awaked and rejoiced,
and heralded with the song of birds, and the bursting of green buds
and the blooming of flowers, the resurrection from the dead--the
coming of spring.
"Time calls, and Change
Commands both men and gods, and speeds us on
We know not whither; but the old earth smiles
Spring after spring, and the seed bursts again
Out of its prison mould, and the dead lives
Renew themselves, and rise aloft and soar
And are transformed, clothing themselves with change,
Till the last change be done."
Lewis Morris.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Jean Ingelow.
LATONA AND THE RUSTICS
Through the tropic nights their sonorous, bell-like booming can be
heard coming up from the marshes, and when they are unseen, the song
of the bull-frogs would suggest creatures full of solemn dignity. The
croak of their lesser brethren is less impressive, yet there is no
escape from it on those evenings when the dragon-flies' iridescent
wings are folded in sleep, and the birds in the branches are still,
when the lilies on the pond have closed their golden hearts, and even
the late-feeding trout have ceased to plop and to make eddies in the
quiet water. "Krroak! krroak! krroak!" they go--"krroak! krroak!
krroak!"
It is unceasing, unending. It goes on like the whirr of the wheels of
a great clock that can never run down--a melancholy complaint against
the hardships of destiny--a raucous protest against things as they
are.
This is the story of the frogs that have helped to point the gibes of
Aristophanes, the morals of AEsop, and which have always been, more or
less, regarded as the low comedians of the animal world.
Latona, or Leto, was the goddess of dark nights, and upon her the
mighty Zeus bestowed the doubtful favour of his errant love. Great was
the wrath of Hera, his queen, when she found that she was no longer
the dearest wife of her omnipotent lord, and with furious upbraidings
she banished her rival to earth. And when Latona had reached the place
of her exile she found that the vengeful goddess had sworn that she
would place her everlasting ban upon anyone, mortal or immortal, who
dared to show any kindness or pity to her whose only fault had been
that Zeus loved her. From place to place she wandered, an outcast even
among men, until, at length, she came to Lycia.
One evening, as the darkness of which she was goddess had just begun
to fall, she reached a green and pleasant valley. The soft, cool grass
was a delight to her tired feet, and when she saw the silvery gleam of
water she rejoiced, for her throat was parched and her lips dry and
she was very weary. By the side of this still pond, where the lilies
floated, there grew lithe grey willows and fresh green osiers, and
these were being cut by a crowd of chattering rustics.
Humbly, for many a rude word and harsh rebuff had the dictum of Hera
brought her during her wanderings, Latona went to the edge of the
pond, and, kneeling down, was most thankfully about to drink, when the
peasants espied her. Roughly and rudely they told her to begone, nor
dare to drink unbidden of the clear water beside which their willows
grew. Very pitifully Latona looked up in their churlish faces, and her
eyes were as the eyes of a doe that the hunters have pressed very
hard.
"Surely, good people," she said, and her voice was sad and low, "water
is free to all. Very far have I travelled, and I am aweary almost to
death. Only grant that I dip my lips in the water for one deep
draught. Of thy pity grant me this boon, for I perish of thirst."
Harsh and coarse were the mocking voices that made answer. Coarser
still were the jests that they made. Then one, bolder than his
fellows, spurned her kneeling figure with his foot, while another
brushed before her and stepping into the pond, defiled its clarity by
churning up the mud that lay below with his great splay feet.
Loudly the peasants laughed at this merry jest, and they quickly
followed his lead, as brainless sheep will follow the one that
scrambles through a gap. Soon they were all joyously stamping and
dancing in what had so lately been a pellucid pool. The water-lilies
and blue forget-me-nots were trodden down, the fish that had their
homes under the mossy stones in terror fled away. Only the mud came
up, filthy, defiling, and the rustics laughed in loud and foolish
laughter to see the havoc they had wrought.
The goddess Latona rose from her knees. No longer did she seem a mere
woman, very weary, hungry and athirst, travelled over far. In their
surprised eyes she grew to a stature that was as that of the deathless
gods. And her eyes were dark as an angry sea at even.
"Shameless ones!" she said, in a voice as the voice of a storm that
sweeps destroyingly over forest and mountain. "Ah! shameless ones! Is
it thus that thou wouldst defy one who has dwelt on Olympus? Behold
from henceforth shalt thou have thy dwelling in the mud of the
green-scummed pools, thy homes in the water that thy flat feet have
defiled."
As she spoke, a change, strange and terrible, passed over the forms of
the trampling peasants. Their stature shrank. They grew squat and fat.
Their hands and feet were webbed, and their grinning mouths became
great, sad, gaping openings by which to swallow worms and flies. Green
and yellow and brown were their skins, and when they would fain have
cried aloud for mercy, from their throats there would come only the
"_Krroak! krroak! krroak!_" that we know so well.
And when, that night, the goddess of darkness was wrapped in peace in
the black, silver star bespangled robe that none could take from her,
there arose from the pond over which the grey willows hung, weeping,
the clamour of a great lamentation. Yet no piteous words were there,
only the incessant, harsh complaint of the frogs that we hear in the
marshes.
From that time the world went well with Latona. Down to the seashore
she came, and when she held out her arms in longing appeal to the
AEgean islands that lay like purple flowers strewn, far apart, on a
soft carpet of limpid blue, Zeus heard her prayer. He asked Poseidon
to send a dolphin to carry the woman he loved to the floating island
of Delos, and when she had been borne there in safety, he chained the
island with chains of adamant to the golden-sanded floor of the sea.
And on this sanctuary there were born to Latona twin children,
thereafter to be amongst the most famed of the deathless gods--the
god and goddess, Apollo and Diana.
"... Those hinds that were transformed to frogs
Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny,
Which after held the sun and moon in fee."
Milton.
Yet are there times, as we look at the squat, bronze bodies of the
frogs--green-bronze, dark brown spotted, and all flecked with gold,
the turned-down corners of their wistful mouths, their very exquisite
black velvety eyes with golden rims--when the piteous croaks that come
forth from their throats of pale daffodil colour do indeed awake a
sympathy with their appeal against the inexorable decrees of destiny.
"We did not know! We did not understand! Pity us! Ah, pity us!
_Krroak! krroak! krroak!_"
ECHO AND NARCISSUS
In the solitudes of the hills we find her, and yet we may come on her
unawares in the din of a noisy city. She will answer us where the
waves are lashing themselves against the rugged cliffs of our own
British coast, or we may find her where the great yellow pillars of
fallen temples lie hot in the sun close to the vivid blue water of the
African sea. At nightfall, on the lonely northern moors, she mimics
the cry of a wailing bird that calls for its mate, but it is she who
prolongs the roll of the great organ in a vast cathedral, she who
repeats the rattle and crack and boom of the guns, no matter in what
land the war may be raging. In the desolate Australian bush she makes
the crash of the falling limb of a dead gum tree go on and on, and
tortures the human being who is lost, hopelessly lost, and facing a
cruel death, by repeating his despairing calls for help. Through the
night, in old country-houses, she sports at will and gives new life to
sad old tales of the restless dead who restlessly walk. But she echoes
the children's voices as they play by the seashore or pick primroses
in the woods in spring, and when they greet her with laughter, she
laughs in merry response. They may fear her when the sun has gone
down, and when they are left all alone they begin to dread her
mockery. Yet the nymph who sought for love and failed to gain what
she sought must surely find some comfort on those bright days of
summer and of spring when she gives the little children happiness and
they give her their love.
When all the world was young, and nymphs and fauns and dryads dwelt in
the forests, there was no nymph more lovely and more gay than she
whose name was Echo. Diana would smile on her for her fleetness of
foot when she followed her in the chase, and those whom she met in the
leafy pathways of the dim, green woods, would pass on smiling at the
remembrance of her merry chatter and her tricksy humour.
It was an evil day for Echo when she crossed the path of Hera, queen
of the gods. The jealous goddess sought her errant husband, who was
amusing himself with some nymphs, and Echo, full of mischievous glee,
kept her in talk until the nymphs had fled to safety. Hera was furious
indeed when she found out that a frolicsome nymph had dared to play on
her such a trick, and ruthlessly she spoke fair Echo's doom.
"Henceforth," she said, "the tongue with which thou hast cheated me
shall be in bonds. No longer wilt thou have the power to speak in
greeting. To the tongues of others shall thy tongue be slave, and from
this day until time shall cease thou shalt speak only to repeat the
last words that have fallen on thine ears."
A maimed nymph indeed was Echo then, yet whole in all that matters
most, in that her merry heart was still her own. But only for a little
while did this endure.
Narcissus, the beautiful son of a nymph and a river god, was hunting
in a lonely forest one day when Echo saw him pass. To her he seemed
more fair than god or man, and once she had seen him she knew that she
must gain his love or die. From that day on, she haunted him like his
shadow, gliding from tree to tree, nestling down amongst thick fern
and undergrowth, motionless as one who stalks a wild thing, watching
him afar off while he rested, gladdening her eyes with his beauty. So
did she feed her hungering heart, and sought to find contentment by
looking on his face each day.
To her at length came a perfect moment when Narcissus was separated
from his companions in the chase and, stopping suddenly where the
evening sun chequered the pathway of the forest with black and gold,
heard the nymph's soft footfall on the rustling leaves.
"Who's here?" he called.
"_Here!_" answered Echo.
Narcissus, peering amongst the trees' long shadows and seeing no one,
called "Come!"
And "_Come!_" called the glad voice of Echo, while the nymph, with
fast-beating heart, felt that her day of happiness had come indeed.
"Why do you shun me?" then called Narcissus.
"_Why do you shun me?_" Echo repeated.
"Let us join one another," said the lad, and the simple words seemed
turned into song when Echo said them over.
"_Let us join one another!_" she said, and not Eos herself, as with
rosy fingers she turns aside the dark clouds of night, could be fairer
than was the nymph as she pushed aside the leaves of the trackless
wood, and ran forward with white arms outstretched to him who was lord
of her life.
[Illustration: SHE HAUNTED HIM LIKE HIS SHADOW]
With cold eyes and colder heart the one she loved beheld her.
"Away!" he cried, shrinking back as if from something that he hated.
"_Away!_ I would rather die than that you should have me!"
"_Have me!_" cried Echo pitifully, but she pled in vain. Narcissus had
no love to give her, and his scorn filled her with shame. Thenceforth
in the forest revels she never more was seen, and the nymphs danced
gaily as ever, with never a care for her who had faded and gone away
as completely as though she were a blossom in the passing of spring.
In the solitude of mountain cliffs and caves and rocky places, and in
the loneliest depths of the forest, Echo hid her grief, and when the
winds blew through the dark branches of the trees at night, moaning
and sighing, they could hear far below them the voice of Echo
repeating their lamentations. For her, long nights followed hopeless
days, and nights and days only told her that her love was all in vain.
Then came a night when the winds no longer saw the figure of the
nymph, white and frail as a broken flower, crouching close to the
rocks they passed over. Grief had slain the body of Echo. Only her
voice was left to repeat their mocking laughter, their wistful
sighs--only her voice that lives on still though all the old gods are
gone, and but few there are who know her story.
Heartwhole and happy, Narcissus, slayer of happiness, went on his
way, and other nymphs besides fair Echo suffered from loving him in
vain. One nymph, less gentle than Echo, poured the tale of her love
that was scorned into the sympathetic ears of the goddess of Love, and
implored her to punish Narcissus.
Hot and tired from the chase, Narcissus sought one day a lonely pool
in the woods, there to rest and to quench his thirst.
"In some delicious ramble, he had found
A little space, with boughs all woven round;
And in the midst of all, a clearer pool
Than e'er reflected in its pleasant cool
The blue sky here, and there, serenely peeping
Through tendril wreaths fantastically creeping."
As he stooped down to drink, a face looked at his through the crystal
clear water, and a pair of beautiful eyes met his own. His surprise
and joy at the sight of what he felt sure must be the most beautiful
creature on earth, was evidently shared by the nymph of the pool, who
gazed fearlessly up at him.
Round her head she had a nimbus of curls than which that of
Adonis--nay, of the sun-god himself, was not more perfect, while her
eyes were like the brown pools of water in a rippling mountain stream,
flecked with sunshine, yet with depths untold. When Narcissus smiled
at her in rapture, her red lips also parted in a smile. He stretched
out his arms towards her, and her arms were stretched to him. Almost
trembling in his delight, he slowly stooped to kiss her. Nearer she
drew to him, nearer still, but when his mouth would have given itself
to that other mouth that was formed like the bow of Eros--a thing to
slay hearts--only the chilly water of the pool touched his lips, and
the thing of his delight vanished away. In passionate disappointment
Narcissus waited for her to return, and as soon as the water of the
pool grew still, once more he saw her exquisite face gazing wistfully
up into his. Passionately he pled with the beautiful creature--spoke
of his love--besought her to have pity on him, but although the face
in the pool reflected his every look of adoration and of longing, time
and again he vainly tried to clasp in his arms what was but the
mirrored likeness of himself.
In full measure had the avenging goddess meted out to Narcissus the
restless longing of unsatisfied love. By day and by night he haunted
the forest pool, and ere long the face that looked back at his was
pale as a lily in the dawn. When the moonbeams came straying down
through the branches and all the night was still, they found him
kneeling by the pool, and the white face that the water mirrored had
the eyes of one of the things of the woods to which a huntsman has
given a mortal wound. Mortally wounded he truly was, slain, like many
another since his day, by a hopeless love for what was in truth but an
image, and that an image of his own creation. Even when his shade
passed across the dark Stygian river, it stooped over the side of the
boat that it might try to catch a glimpse of the beloved one in the
inky waters.
Echo and the other nymphs were avenged, yet when they looked on the
beautiful dead Narcissus, they were filled with sorrow, and when they
filled the air with their lamentations, most piteously did the voice
of Echo repeat each mournful cry. Even the gods were pitiful, and when
the nymphs would have burned the body on a funeral pyre which their
own fair hands had built for him, they sought it in vain. For the
Olympians had turned Narcissus into a white flower, the flower that
still bears his name and keeps his memory sweet.
"A lonely flower he spied,
A meek and forlorn flower, with naught of pride,
Drooping its beauty o'er the watery clearness,
To woo its own sad image into nearness;
Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move,
But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love."
Keats.
ICARUS
Fourteen years only have passed since our twentieth century began. In
those fourteen years how many a father's and mother's heart has bled
for the death of gallant sons, greatly-promising, greatly-daring, who
have sought to rule the skies? With wings not well enough tried, they
have soared dauntlessly aloft, only to add more names to the tragic
list of those whose lives have been sacrificed in order that the
groping hands of science may become sure, so that in time the sons of
men may sail through the heavens as fearlessly as their fathers sailed
through the seas.
High overhead we watch the monoplane, the great, swooping thing, like
a monster black-winged bird, and our minds travel back to the story of
Icarus, who died so many years ago that there are those who say that
his story is but a foolish fable, an idle myth.
Daedalus, grandson of a king of Athens, was the greatest artificer of
his day. Not only as an architect was he great, but as a sculptor he
had the creative power, not only to make men and women and animals
that looked alive, but to cause them to move and to be, to all
appearances, endowed with life. To him the artificers who followed him
owed the invention of the axe, the wedge, the wimble, and the
carpenter's level, and his restless mind was ever busy with new
inventions. To his nephew, Talus, or Perdrix, he taught all that he
himself knew of all the mechanical arts. Soon it seemed that the
nephew, though he might not excel his uncle, equalled Daedalus in his
inventive power. As he walked by the seashore, the lad picked up the
spine of a fish, and, having pondered its possibilities, he took it
home, imitated it in iron, and so invented the saw. A still greater
invention followed this. While those who had always thought that there
could be none greater than Daedalus were still acclaiming the lad,
there came to him the idea of putting two pieces of iron together,
connecting them at one end with a rivet, and sharpening both ends, and
a pair of compasses was made. Louder still were the acclamations of
the people. Surely greater than Daedalus was here. Too much was this
for the artist's jealous spirit.
One day they stood together on the top of the Acropolis, and Daedalus,
murder that comes from jealousy in his heart, threw his nephew down.
Down, down he fell, knowing well that he was going to meet a cruel
death, but Pallas Athene, protectress of all clever craftsmen, came to
his rescue. By her Perdrix was turned into the bird that still bears
his name, and Daedalus beheld Perdrix, the partridge, rapidly winging
his way to the far-off fields. Since then, no partridge has ever built
or roosted in a high place, but has nestled in the hedge-roots and
amongst the standing corn, and as we mark it we can see that its
flight is always low.